Xtreme geek keyboard DataHand II Professional II™: is it worth it?

I've been a heavy Datahand user for the past 13 years. I have two -- one for home, and one for the office. I type for a living.

I had a typing repetitive strain injury that forced me to give up standard keyboards and mice. I did some research, and the Datahand was the only keyboard that made sense to me -- minimal finger movement, hands in a natural resting position. (I mounted my Datahand to my chair.)

Learning did take a while. After a week, I could struggle through my email. After two weeks, I could work again, but slowly. Punctuation and function keys were the hardest to learn. After a month of steady practice, I was pretty good. The only way to learn is to throw away your old keyboard so you're not tempted to use it!

It's hard to believe this keyboard should really cost $1000 (or $500) to make, but I was desperate and paid the money. I bought my second Datahand used on Ebay for much less.

For a heavily used keyboard, the Datahand has been decently reliable, but I end up doing some kind of repair about once a year. Problems include: solder connections cracking and needing re-soldering, optical key switches getting gummed up with crud, thumb-keys cracking and breaking.

Regarding the mouse -- The Datahand has an arrow-key "mouse mode", but it's almost useless. Believe it or not, my solution is to mouse with my foot.

Was it worth it? Despite all the issues, I'm sold. I've been using mine exclusively for over a decade.

In my opinion, the DataHand keyboard is the only keyboard on the the market that is worth its price. All the others are a net negative in my view even if you gave them to me for free and paid me a living wage to use them. Even with that, four hours of continuous work is about as long as I can last if I have to use the antique flat keyboard (carried over from the era of mechanical typewriters). In contrast, I can work as long as I need to on the DataHand keyboard. I have often worked on it for 18 hours and I commonly work for at least 12.

I was one of the first three users of the keyboard starting in 1992 with the original black model (one of them is for sale at present on e-bay, but I would only buy it for collector purposes). The current (third) model (which I have have been using since 1996) is the first truly solid professional product with a crisp feel to the keys and a good (though still not perfect) ROM (at least it is not perfect for a Mac user; it is better for PC users).

The mouse functionality of the keyboard is its least functional aspect in my opinion, and I have always supplemented it with an external mousing device---usually in the past a trackball but now with an Ergo Trackpad mounted on the display area of the left hand (because I am left handed). I slide my hand forward on the palm pad less than an inch to use it, and it provides the mousing functionality the DH has long needed. The Ergo Trackpad has its own quirkiness, but once figured out, it can be made to work well (if my experience is a good guide for others to follow).

When I learned to use the keyboard I changed over cold turkey, using it full time from day one even though I was slow. The better method is to train for about four half hour daily sessions for the first week or two. Using my cold turkey method, which is needed by people who are too stressed to work on the flat keyboard for even part of the day, about a month is needed by adult users to get up to moderate speed. I needed more time to maximize my speed and lower my error rate. I am a writer, not a production copy typist, so I am not the fastest typist in the world, but I have talked to medical transcriptions who are paid by the word. They tell me they have greatly reduced their stress and improved their income by about 25%. I am now much faster on the DH keyboard than I ever was on the flat keyboard, but endurance, stress, and fatigue are the bigger issues.

I was only about 40-50 wpm on the flat keyboard after 30 years of trying, and I converted to the Dvorak layout on the flat keyboard about six or seven years before I got my first DataHand keyboard. I use the Dvorak layout on the DataHand keyboard, and I think it is significantly better though not as much better as it is on the flat keyboard. The QWERTY layout puts too much work on the top row of keys, and those movements on the DataHand keyboard are the most awkward (at least for beginners).

I like the DataHand so much I am an investor in the company, but I used the DataHand keyboard for almost a decade, before I felt sure enough about its value to share my views about it. I ask no one to take my word as anything more than an hypothesis to be personally tested doing the work they do. Some kinds of work and some hand sizes and shapes are not optimal for the DataHand keyboard. For straight alphanumeric entry, it is superior in my view. I suggest getting the keyboard and using it every day (at least two hours per day) for a month at least. That is the minimum amount of time needed to understand the DataHand advantage and understand if it can work for you.

In my opinion, the first (prior) respondent did give enough time to gain anything more than preliminary impression and a prejudice. Six months of experience would be better still to get the feel of the DataHand keyboard at a production level. Also, go out on the Internet and read everything you can find about the keyboard before you buy. It should not be bought on an impulse. Inform yourself fully about the experience of others before you get it.

Lately, prices on e-bay have been high enough to make a reasonable resale if necessary. Most people need about six months months to learn any keyboard, but the DataHand keyboard is easier to learn than the flat keyboard because learning is tactily reinforced with each key having a distinct movement direction and feel. The Dvorak layout is also easier to learn than QWERTY layout. Because of the DataHand tactility, a skilled user can work in the dark with no trouble. I have done it often. I no longer need to look at the display more than occasionally to find an infrequently used key (a couple of times per year).

The biggest problem lately has been getting new product, because the company that makes the keyboards for DataHand Systems has been moving and retooling its plant. That process has taken much longer than expected. I do not know how the company can take so long and stay in business. They have been six months or more in the process of getting the new plant ready.

P.S. I added a comment but I did not see it show up, so I am editing it into the body of the message: The DataHand keyboard is more quiet than most other keyboards, but it is not totally quiet. On durability, the keyboard I am using right now has been in use almost every day for about 15 years, and it has needed one repair almost a decade ago (a small component failure). The other two models the company made previously were in use for a total of about four years before I got this model, and even though the designs were still not ready for prime time in my opinion, they did not suffer any failures.

i had the displeasure of using one of these "keyboards" for about a month on and off. i assumed that i'd get used to it after using it for a while.. i was wrong. it's huge, weird, awkward and not a something that i ended up being willing learn. the motions of the fingers aren't something that was natural to me.

after that i tried the bat keyboard, the frogpad, various bendy weirdness and finally settled on two apple keyboard with keycaps arranged in dvorak layout (much easier to learn than the datahand board) and haven't looked back.